The Other Three
by JayceeTFA
Summary: Three unnamed tributes survived the bloodbath. We don't know much about them except when they were killed. Until now.


When she finally stopped to catch her breath, putting a tight grip on the stitch in her stomach, Kenzie didn't know how long she had been running. She could no longer hear the agonizing screams and the clatter of metal in the Cornucopia. All she could see, in every direction she glanced, was forest.

No other tributes. Not so much as a hint of one.

Kenzie leaned against the trunk of one tree and sighed heavily. She'd made it through the first stage. She hadn't become a statistic in the bloodbath.

Her district partner, Amtan, hadn't been so lucky. She thought of the brief glimpse she'd had of him foolishly challenging the boy from District 1 to hand-to-hand combat. The cocksure guy in the light blue suit on the night of the interviews. He had already picked up a curved knife. Amtan had no chance.

If only he had gone right for the weapons. Then maybe – maybe – he could have fought back and won.

_Could have_? Kenzie snorted. Amtan's odds had been 3-1, higher than those of three of the Careers, Blue Suit Boy included. And Kenzie's were 5-1. Either one of them could have won for District 8, the Gamemakers knew. If that District 12 girl hadn't pulled off an 11 in training, they might have made a few headlines in the Capitol the day after Flickerman announced the scores.

_I guess we didn't have the star quality of the "girl on fire._" Kenzie cringed, thinking back to her and Amtan's ridiculous pink-and-blue parade outfits. _Shouldn't District 8 have the best costumes? Without us, there would _be_ no costumes_.

But she mentally brushed star quality aside. The Hunger Games slogan wasn't "May the odds be ever in your favor" for nothing. The odds weren't in the girl on fire's favor. Not compared to Kenzie.

She slung the tiny satchel she'd picked up over her shoulder and kept moving.

* * *

As the sky grew darker and the temperature fell, Kenzie started wishing she'd gone for one of the larger packs at the Cornucopia. She had already eaten a couple of the dry, tasteless biscuits that had been in her satchel. The tiny flask she'd filled with purified pond water was already half-empty. The only other object in the bag was a pack of matches.

If only there had been something she could sew. A sleeping bag, a tarp, even a length of rope might have done. She could have fashioned some needles out of a couple of twigs. She could make herself something warm – a scarf, some gloves, an extra pair of socks . . .

Kenzie had always been a good sewer, because she'd learned from the best. Her mother ran a tailor shop in the main business block of District 8. Most people there didn't know how to sew by hand – they used the most advanced garment-making machinery in the textile factories. But Kenzie's family had passed down that ancient skill for generations. And her mother had a special talent for sprucing up the boring khaki uniforms everyone wore to work, just by adding something colorful or shiny. The Peacekeepers didn't like it – they seemed to think those minor expressions of individuality were bad for cohesiveness – but there was no law against it.

_Don't worry about me, Mom, _Kenzie thought, before she could recognize the feeling of homesickness that approached her mind. _I'm gonna be all right_.

If only she could find some warm spot to lie down. She had been on her feet for hours by then.

* * *

The sky finally turned pitch-black. Kenzie gave up on finding a warm spot and stumbled into a little clearing. It wasn't much, but surely nobody would be out hunting by now. It was too dark, and freezing.

_Of course_, she realized, thinking back to past Hunger Games, _some tributes _are _that eager to kill_. . . .

She had nothing resembling a weapon. In her private session with the Gamemakers, she had shown off her camouflage skills, developed after a year of dyeing fabrics at her first factory job. She wasn't as good at it as the boy from District 12 – she'd spotted him blending into a fake tree during group training. But she could get the job done, especially this late at night. Camouflage wasn't a weapon. But it can be a good way to avoid one.

The only materials Kenzie had for camouflage were earth, biscuit crumbs, and the matches in her pack. Her hands were too cold to scrape up any earth. There was no way she was using the biscuits for anything but food, bland as they were. And the matches, if she lit them all and snuffed them out right away, would probably create just enough ash to cover part of one cheek.

The thought of lighting the matches suddenly became tempting, even more tempting than the idea of camouflaging herself. A fire would be just the thing she needed to relax. Not even a big fire, just enough to warm her hands and face. Nobody would notice the smoke if she kept it contained, and with the cover of the low-growing plants that surrounded her clearing, nobody would even see the flame.

_Unless,_ Kenzie thought in amusement as she started gathering some branches for kindling, _they were up a tree._

* * *

Kenzie's fire had died down long before, but the coals were still warm when dawn broke. She had managed a few hours of sleep, dreaming of being taken by hovercraft back to the Capitol, President Snow placing that gold crown on her head, returning triumphantly to District 8 and giving them something to celebrate for once. Her fellow residents clapping, yelling, stomping their feet . . .

Suddenly she woke up, realizing the foot-stomping wasn't just in her dream. Five pairs of feet were heading directly for her. She looked up to see the five people attached to them – one of them, the boy from District 2, carrying a sword. He seemed very happy to see her.

Kenzie heard herself scream.

* * *

Injustice. It was an injustice that she'd woken up. Death had lasted all of twenty seconds. Not death – shock.

Kenzie barely managed to raise her head and gasp at the gaping, bloody wound in her stomach. She couldn't even sit up with a cut like that. She would be lying here for who knows how long, waiting to bleed out, waiting for an infection, anything. Anything to end the agonizing pain. Anything to end the bitter disappointment.

The odds had been in her favor.

That was what every tribute hoped for.

It hadn't mattered.

Through the turmoil of her thoughts, Kenzie heard the Careers arguing just yards. About what? She didn't know. It was just a blur of their voices. The same ones that had laughed in sadistic delight as the District 2 boy took his sword to her.

And then it came: "We're wasting time! I'll go finish her and let's move on!"

The District 12 boy, who had become an ally of theirs. Why hadn't she tried to become an ally? She could have had a chance. . . .

Kenzie's head dropped back on the forest floor. She couldn't lament anything now. She could only wait for the boy to come back to the clearing and put her out of her misery.

Too bad she couldn't thank him.


End file.
